The Problem: Lack of Specialist Expertise for Frontline Healthcare Missionaries
Christian Medical & Dental Associations®
March 18, 2025
by: Dr. Jeff Lee, Dr. Hau Liu, Tim O’Keefe
Healthcare missionaries heed God’s call to serve all over the world. Often, this means working in isolated regions with a wide scope of clinical responsibilities and limited access to medical specialists. This lack of specialist expertise can result in unclear diagnoses or incomplete treatment plans. Yet, a number of medical specialists have a heart and the skills to support these frontline workers but are not sure how they can help.
ConsultBridge, a non-profit clinician to clinician tele-consultation platform, fills this gap by leveraging technology to provide virtual access to qualified medical specialists to support frontline healthcare missionaries in low-resource areas across the globe.
How ConsultBridge Works
Frontline healthcare missionaries (“field workers”) join by completing a profile and submitting consult requests on the ConsultBridge platform with de-identified patient information, including relevant medical records, test results and imaging results. These requests are sent to specialists (“consultants”) in the relevant field with a goal response time within three days. The first consultant to accept is matched with the field worker. Field workers and consultants communicate on the ConsultBridge platform via asynchronous messaging as well as other apps such as Zoom, WhatsApp or iMessage as needed.
Field workers are not charged for using the platform and consultants volunteer their time, helping ensure cost is not a barrier to accessing essential medical expertise.
Supporting a Range of Specialties
ConsultBridge currently offers consultant expertise in 18 specialties including cardiology, dermatology, endocrinology, family medicine and neonatology. It is seeking consultants in high-demand areas like radiology, pediatric surgery and psychiatry. All consultants are vetted to ensure they hold active medical licenses (unless retired) and are properly qualified.
“I’ve found the platform easy to use and feel privileged to support the work of medical missionaries at the frontline,” said Dr. Hau Liu, an endocrinologist who also serves as a ConsultBridge consultant.
Bridging the Gap with Technology
While virtual consultations can never fully replace in-person care, they offer a scalable solution for expanding healthcare access. Future ConsultBridge features include virtual video capability, consultation scheduling and continuing education materials tailored to healthcare workers in low-resource settings.
The Vision Behind ConsultBridge
ConsultBridge founder Dr. Jeff Lee, a pediatrician based in California, felt God’s call to serve in healthcare missions while in medical school. This passion was fanned during healthcare mission trips to orphanages in Mexico. However, family obligations limited his ability to move abroad. Working as a physician in virtual settings, he saw how technology could be used to remotely connect physicians to improve care of patients. In 2022, along with Tim O’Keefe and Dr. Liu, Dr. Lee founded ConsultBridge to support frontline healthcare missionaries and enable medical specialists to contribute from home, offering a new way to answer the call to global service—virtually—without relocating abroad.
A Ministry of Service
At its core, ConsultBridge is more than a telehealth platform—it is a ministry of service. Field workers must adhere to ConsultBridge’s statement of faith and sign a waiver acknowledging full responsibility for patient care. Consultants commit to a 12-month term and agree to field at least two consult requests per month depending on consult volume.
ConsultBridge has also benefited greatly from the support of the Christian Medical & Dental Associations (CMDA). Drs. Lee and Liu were recently interviewed by CMDA CEO Dr. Mike Chupp on the October 2024 episode of the CMDA Matters podcast, “Introducing ConsultBridge,” Support from Dr. Chupp and other CMDA leaders, including CMDA Center for Advancing Healthcare Missions Director Dr. Doug Lindberg, has been instrumental in the development and growth of the platform. ConsultBridge also presented recently at the Global Missions Health Conference (GMHC).
Empowering the Future of Healthcare Missions
ConsultBridge’s goal is to transform how healthcare missionaries serve by connecting those in need of medical expertise with specialists who can help. Dr Suja Brane eloquently sums up how medical specialists looking to use their skills can help those serving abroad: “As a specialist, you have the ability to empower us on the mission field to provide a higher quality of care in the name of Christ.”
To learn more or join the ConsultBridge network, visit ConsultBridge.org.
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